turbulence here in washington tonight. >> asthefaabeganfurloughing air traffic controllers and the flight delays began. the finger pointing quickly followed. >> as a result of administration's poor planning, i would argue political motives, thousands of people were stuck on tarmacs over the last few days. >> congress had an opportunity but republicans made a choice. and this is a result of a choice they made to embrace the sequester as, and i'm quoting republicans, as a victory for the tea party and a home run. >> if the blame was partisan, the pain was not. long lines and missed connections raised bipartisan concerns with republican and democratic senators asking the transportation secretary and head of the faa how much funding do you need to avoid furloughing air traffic controllers and to keep the contract air traffic control towers open and what could you cut from other accounts to avoid or reduced air traffic controller furloughs and contract closures and there were bipartisan proposed solutions. >> what i believe is there ought to be postponement of these furloughs to give all of us

caught up inthefaasequesterand this is probably the first hand account of sewing th seeing this. >> we were about to take off and the pilot comes back and doesn't see me cnbc. the faa says we don't have enough air traffic controllers to take off. i said is this from delta? the faa wanted to make it very clear to everyone onboard is that the reason we're not taking off is because they're shorthanded. oh, jim kramer from cnbc, would you please get the word out that we're not taking off because the faa said you cannot come from orlando. we're not ready. we don't have enough people. it was pretty amazing. >> it was orlando to where? la guard wra? >> orlando to kennedy. >> it was absolutely not a weather delay. we are ready to go. delta is ready to go. the faa says listen, you can't come in. we don't have enough people. we can't do the job. it was remarkable. we said how long? two and a half hours? why is that? >> maybe two and a half hours the faa says they might be able to round up enough people to land the airplanes in kennedy. >> that is stunning. i was watching in horror because

as the national transportation safety board takes a closer look at one fire in particular just days afterthefaaapprovedboeing's plan to get its fleet back in the air. dan springer is live in seattle. dan? >> reporter: yeah, jon. the faa approved the battery fix even as the company answers tough questions about the fire back in january that led to the dreamliner fleet getting grounded. the plane's lithium ion battery sured a short which led to the failure of all eight cells. boeing's new plan includes a redesigned battery that has more insulation between the cells to prevent what's called thermal runaway. the battery charger has been redesigned to reduce the total amount of energy in the battery so it doesn't work as hard, and it's going to be in a better steel containment box that won't allow oxygen to fuel a fire. the ntsb put boeing on the defensive this morning about its assumptions that turned out to be wrong. >> what we can't do is we can't account for every single possible method of short circuit, particularly what we would consider the unknown unknowns. >> reporter: boeing says it has

at the airport.thef.a.a. imposingfurloughs on thousands of employees. those cuts are being blamed on sequester. guess what? delays, delays, delays. >>steve: with fewer workers responsible for the same number of planes that means you're going to have to wait. here now stuart varney, we're not going to make him wait. the scare quester didn't work. now what they're trying to do is inflict pain. people are going to sit on planes, they're going to call their congressmen. "you've got to do something about it! " >> that's right. quick pop quiz. did you know the f.a.a., the people who run the air traffic system, this year they will spend $500 million on consultants, $325 million on supplies and travel, $474 million on grants to make communities more livable and sustainable. >>steve: are you saying there's money available where they don't have to furlough those guys? >> exactly. why don't you take some of that money and put it into the air traffic controllers' bucket so we don't have to have these delays? because the president says we don't have the flexibility. we cannot redirect spending. not allowed